Nowhere From Here
by Rainyrose
Summary: When Harry is knocked unconscious, the last thing Ron and Hermione expected was for Harry to wake up with no recollection of the past 3 years.  Why is he in a tent, and what the bloody hell is a Horcrux?  Deathly Hallows AU.


**This story takes place during Deathly Hallows. The trio has just escaped from the Ministry of Magic after stealing the locket horcrux. Enjoy!  
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**Chapter 1**

Harry Potter opened his eyes slowly, blinking in the dim light of the room. He was laying flat on his back on what appeared to be the lower bunk of a bunk bed. Harry frowned through squinted eyes as he slowly rubbed the side of his aching head.

He felt oddly disoriented. As his fingers traced his throbbing temple he could feel a swollen lump just below his hairline. Where had that come from? The last thing he could remember doing was facing off with the Hungarian Horntail in the first task of the Triwizard Tournament…. He remembered summoning his Firebolt to his aid and feeling his panic leave him the moment he had taken off. He'd circled and antagonized the dragon before diving to retrieve the golden egg. After his victory lap around the enclosure he'd touched back down on the ground and dismounted from his broom, and Moody, McGonagall, and Hagrid had congratulated him on a superb performance…. McGonagall, he recalled, had looked particularly pale and shaken… and then….

There was nothing.

Harry screwed up his eyes, trying to remember what had happened next, but his mind came up blank. There was only darkness pressing up against the back of his mind where his memories should be.

Harry opened his eyes again and glanced around at his blurry surroundings, his confusion growing rapidly. Whatever room he was in, it was dark. And it certainly wasn't anywhere he could ever remember being at Hogwarts…. The walls appeared to be smooth, rather than rough like the stone walls of the castle. The blankets which were piled on top of his body weren't the scarlet duvets from Gryffindor Tower, nor were they the crisp white sheets of the hospital wing. What was going on? How had he gotten into this bed? Had someone hit him with a curse and knocked him unconscious? Had the dragon somehow managed to give him a head injury?

He felt very insecure in this unfamiliar environment and his heart fluttered fearfully. He didn't think he was on the school grounds anymore. This was exactly what Sirius had warned him about- someone had entered him into the Tournament because they wanted him dead. He must have been kidnapped!

_Where's my wand?_ Harry thought, struggling to sit up properly under the mountain of blankets while simultaneously groping beside his bed. His hand knocked into a familiar shape and he exhaled in relief- it was his glasses. He snatched them up and shoved them onto his face, and the world immediately came back into focus. He spotted his wand lying innocently on the bedside table next to a glass of water. He seized it and held it aloft, taking his first clear look at the room he was in.

Except that it wasn't a room, exactly. There were two bunk beds, one of which he was lying on, each with an end table beside the lowest bunk; and there was an empty wooden chair sitting beside his bed. But that wasn't what startled Harry. It was the walls of this room that had captured his attention, for they appeared to be made of some kind of cloth.

He was in a… tent?

Perplexed, Harry slowly inched his feet out from under the blankets and lowered them to the floor… a floor that wasn't made of wood, but of the same canvas material that made up the walls. There was an opening at the end of the room which seemed to lead to a different part of the tent, but it was obscured by another flap of canvas. Harry could see a flickering light coming from behind it. As he listened he heard a muffled sort of clanging and a low jumble of voices coming from the room beyond.

Harry gripped his wand tightly and moved to pull himself up into a standing position, but as he rose stars erupted across his vision. He gripped his head tightly as the world spun around him, fast enough to make him feel sick. He stood still, waiting for it to pass, and once it did his head felt odd- almost like it was filled with fluff.

Numbly Harry staggered across the room to the flap in the tent and pushed it aside, preparing to let forth a string of defensive hexes-

But the person in the next room was a very familiar, albeit unexpected, individual that Harry knew very well indeed.

"Hermione?" exclaimed Harry.

There was a squeak and a loud _clang_ as Hermione dropped the teapot she was carrying and spun around.

"Harry! You're awake!" she cried. "I was just making some tea- How are you feeling?" She looked at him worriedly.

"Er… I'm alright, I suppose…. What happened?" Harry asked in surprise, still trying to get his bearings and slow his bounding heart. He vaguely recognized his surroundings- this was the tent he and the Weasleys had stayed in during the Quidditch World Cup. But what were they doing here?

As Hermione stooped to pick up the teapot on the floor Harry had a full view of the person she'd been talking to over her shoulder- it was Ron. Ron, who wasn't supposed to be on speaking terms with him, was looking straight at him and grinning, his left arm wrapped up in a sling.

"Blimey, mate! It's about time you woke up! You've been unconscious for ages," Ron said. He was seated at the oak table and had an empty teacup in his good hand.

Harry stared. These were the first words Ron had spoken to him in weeks, and he was acting as if nothing was wrong between the two of them! What was going on? And what had happened to Ron's arm?

"I- Wait, unconscious?" Harry sputtered, and he winced as his voice cracked audibly on the last word.

"You hit your head," said Ron, gesturing at the swollen bump on Harry's temple.

"I don't get it…. What happened?" Harry asked again, disarmed by Ron's blasé attitude. "Was it the dragon?"

"Dragon?" repeated Ron, looking confused. He opened his mouth to say more but he was cut off by Hermione, who was wringing her hands anxiously and looked about ready to cry.

"I'm so sorry Harry, it's all my fault, I messed up!" she burst out suddenly. "We were about to Apparate and Yaxley had a hold of me, I tried to shake him off but I couldn't and- oh Harry- I brought him with us back to Grimmauld Place! He can get in now, it isn't s-safe for us there anymore, so I a-apparated us h-here!" She paused and gasped in a shuddering breath, tears cascading down her cheeks. "Ron was s-splinched and you must have t-tripped when we landed, you h-hit your head on a rock- a-and-" She squeaked again and reached up to wipe her eyes.

Harry was completely and utterly bewildered. He had no idea what she was talking about. And since when did Hermione know how to Apparate?

"I set up the t-tent and healed R-Ron and the whole time you were unconscious-" Hermione sniffled loudly. "It was horrible!"

She looked so pathetic with her puffy, red eyes and tear-streaked face that Harry didn't know what else to do but hug her. She collapsed against him, shaking, and he rested his head on top of hers.

There was a long moment when all that could be heard were Hermione's sobs.

"Erm… Hermione?" said Harry cautiously. She continued to sob into his chest and ignored him. He looked over her head at Ron, who just shrugged. He tried again.

"Hermione?"

"W-what?" she said into his shirt, her voice muffled.

"I still don't understand…. What's going on?"

She resurfaced and gulped in some air. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"How did we get here?" asked Harry. "I thought we were at Hogwarts?"

Hermione choked and a few more tears leaked from her eyes. "What?"

"Hogwarts," Harry said, slowly and clearly.

"Yes… What about it?"

Harry looked at her incredulously, then at Ron. His mate stared back at him with his brow furrowed.

"_What happened?"_ Harry emphasized slowly. "The last thing I remember is fighting the dragon. How'd we end up here?"

The answering silence in the tent was deafening. Harry waited for one of them to say something but they just stared at him, then turned to stare, wide eyed, at each other. He watched as Hermione's hand slowly came up to cover her mouth as she whispered, "Oh my god!"

Ron looked unnerved. "What are you on about, mate? We just got the first horcrux, remember?" He emitted a single uneasy laugh.

"The first… what?"

"Horcrux, Harry, horcrux!" Hermione exclaimed. Her eyes were round, looking fearfully at him as though she expected him to spontaneously combust.

"What's a horcrux?" asked Harry nervously.

Ron's jaw dropped and Hermione let out a sob of horror.

As they continued to stare at him, horror-struck, Harry felt his face turning red. _What the bloody hell is going on here?_ Harry wanted to ask, but the words failed him.

Ron suddenly stood up. "Joke's over Harry. I get that you're trying to lighten the mood but it's not funny."

"I'm not joking!" Harry protested.

"Yes you are!" said Ron angrily.

"No I'm n-"

"STOP IT!" Hermione shouted, and they both fell silent. Hermione abruptly seized Harry's shoulders and proceeded to manhandle him into an empty chair at the table.

"Hey!" objected Harry loudly but Hermione ignored him. She held his arms in a vice-like grip and kneeled in front of him so that they were on the same eye level.

"Harry, what's the last thing you remember doing? You have to tell me right now!" she said slightly hysterically. Harry noticed then just how awful she looked; her hair was coming out of her braid in large, frizzy clumps and there were dark rings beneath her red eyes. He glanced back at Ron, but his best mate made no move to rescue him; in fact, he now looked sick rather than angry- his skin was pale and tinged slightly with green.

Harry racked his brains desperately. "The first task. I faced the Hungarian Horntail. I grabbed the egg and landed, and was talking to Moody, Hagrid, and McGonagall…." He strained his memory, trying to think of what happened next, but it was useless… there was nothing. "And that's the last I can remember."

Hermione's grip on his arms was now so tight he was steadily losing the feeling in his fingers. Ron swore loudly and circled around the table to take a closer look at the bump on Harry's head.

"You must have hit your head pretty hard there, mate," said Ron anxiously. "You really don't remember _anything?_"

"Any of what?" snapped Harry, who found himself becoming increasingly frustrated and terrified of their reactions. "I remember everything that happened before that! What am I missing? Why won't you just tell me already!"

Hermione was shaking her head, eyes wide. "Because- because- oh, Harry! The first task happened _three years ago!_ You're seventeen now!"

It took a moment for her words to register properly in his brain. And when they did, he wished he hadn't heard them.

"No! I'm… I'm really…. _Seventeen?"_

It couldn't possibly be true. But deep down, Harry knew that his two best friends would never lie to him about something like this.

He had forgotten three entire years of his life. _Three bloody years!_ Who knew what had happened during that time? He tried to imagine himself as a fifth year, sixth year, or seventh year at Hogwarts but it was simply impossible. As far as he knew, he was still just a skinny fourteen year old boy who had been thrown into a gruesome tournament against his will. He felt as if he had just battled that dragon yesterday, for Merlin's sake!

Ron and Hermione were talking, though whether they were speaking to him or to each other he didn't care. It suddenly struck him how _different_ they both looked- he was amazed that he hadn't noticed it sooner. Hermione looked older, more mature somehow, and her hair was different; it was longer and curlier. Ron had grown at least a foot or two in height and his fringe now fell into his eyes. They both looked stressed, pale, and tired.

Harry didn't know what to do with himself. He needed to get away, where he could be alone with his thoughts. It was too much to take in. He rose from his chair, ignoring the feel of Ron and Hermione's eyes on his back, and walked back towards the strange bedroom he'd woken up in.

0 0 0 0 0 0

"Hermione, he doesn't remember anything. _Anything,_" Ron whispered to Hermione as they watched Harry walk away. "He won't remember anything Dumbledore told him, hell, he doesn't even know Dumbledore's dead!" Ron swore violently. "Bloody hell, he doesn't even know that You-Know-Who's back!"

"Hush, Ron!" Hermione whispered despairingly, her lower lip trembling. She wrung her hands anxiously. "Oh, I don't know what to do! How are we going to fix this? What if it's permanent?"

"Don't say that," said Ron with a shutter. "Memory loss is usually just temporary, right?"

Hermione bit her lip. "I don't know," she whispered brokenly. "It might just be a concussion, but we have no way of knowing how bad it is unless we take him to a healer."

They looked at each other, both knowing full well that that was impossible.

"There's got to be another way. There's always another way," said Ron determinately. "What about the Order?"

"It's too risky, Ron!" Hermione cried, tears pooling in her eyes once again. "If we try to contact them we could give away our position! The protective enchantments aren't perfect, you know!" She collapsed into a chair at the table with a thud and buried her face in her hands.

"Erm," said Ron hesitantly. "Would you like a cup of tea?"

Hermione turned her head sideways to glare at him. "No thank you, Ron," she said frostily. "I would _not _like a cup of tea!" And she turned her face back into her palms.

Ron sighed. Sometimes it was best to leave Hermione to calm down enough to think things through with a clear head. If his mum had taught him one thing, it was that a cup of steaming tea could clear your head faster than a wave of your wand. So Ron walked over to the teapot, pulled out his wand, and gave the kettle a tap. Instantly steam was whistling cheerfully from the spout. He carefully filled two teacups with water and dropped in the teabags to soak. He quietly slid one cup in front of Hermione and proceeded to carry the other one to his and Harry's bedroom.

He found Harry sitting on the edge of his bed staring listlessly at the empty rucksack on his pillow. The objects that were usually in the rucksack were strewn across the blankets. Harry had obviously been looking through them.

Ron settled down in the empty chair next to Harry's bed and held out the cup of tea. Harry took it with a muttered "Thanks" and sipped it slowly. They both sat there for a while, each lost in his own musings.

"Remember that time," said Ron suddenly, "when I tried to hex Malfoy and my wand backfired?"

"When you started burping up slugs?" Harry clarified.

"Yeah…."

Harry took another sip of his tea. "Yeah I do," he said. "What about it?"

Ron shrugged. "I wanted to make sure you remembered how much of a git Malfoy is," he said.

Harry snorted. "Typical."

The two of them stewed over their thoughts for another moment and Harry decided to voice something that had been bothering him since he'd first seen Ron out in the kitchen.

"Ron?" he began tentatively, unsure of how to best broach the subject.

"What?" Ron asked tersely, sitting up straighter in his chair. He sensed the change in Harry's tone and was immediately concerned for his friend's health. "Something wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong… well- apart from the obvious-" Harry gestured offhandedly towards his head- "but I was just wondering..." He took a deep breath. "You were mad at me. During the tournament. We weren't speaking before I battled the dragon."

Harry dropped his gaze to his knees. He was afraid of what he'd see if he looked up at Ron's face. "The thing is," he continued, "I was just wondering- Did we ever make up?"

It was quiet for a moment and then Ron chuckled. Caught off guard, Harry's eyes snapped back up in time to see Ron smiling.

"Of course we did, mate! If you thought I'd stay jealous over a stupid thing like that forever then you must've hit your head harder than I thought!"

Relief spread through Harry's veins as Ron clapped him on the shoulder.

"I apologized right after the first task ended. We've been fine ever since."

"Good," grunted Harry. "It was awful without you."

Ron grimaced painfully. "I know… I was a right git back then, wasn't I?"

"Yup," said Harry. Ron pretended to fake punch him in the shoulder. Harry jumped back, spilling tea on his bedspread in the process, and his right hand landed on something sharp. He looked down to see a jagged fragment of glass glinting on top of the quilt.

"Another question- What is this and why am I carrying it around with me?" Harry asked, carefully holding up the piece of mirror.

Ron looked at it closely before shaking his head bemusedly. "No idea. I don't think you've ever shown that to me before."

Dejected, Harry slowly lowered his hand before tossing the mirror fragment back onto the useless heap from his rucksack. Suddenly the gravity of the situation came rushing back to him and his chest constricted. In order to hide this sudden tide of emotion from Ron he hastily drank some more tea.

Ron rubbed his brow as Harry swallowed past the lump in his throat. "Harry- I was thinking…," he began. Harry looked at him expectantly. "Maybe if I talk about some things that happened during the past few years… maybe it would help bring your memories back."

Harry frowned thoughtfully. It could work, he mused. Why not give it a go? "Okay," he said.

Ron cleared his throat loudly and glanced at the glass of water sitting on Harry's bedside table. "Can I have that?" he asked.

Harry cracked a smile and nodded. It was good to know that some things about Ron never changed.

Ron began by telling Harry all about the Reign of Umbridge during their fifth year (conveniently forgetting to mention that she was stationed within the school in response to Harry's insistence that Voldemort was back. He wasn't sure he wanted to cover _that_ story just yet). He mentioned the DA, O.W.L.'s, Harry's kiss with Cho Chang (Harry turned bright red and refused to look at Ron for several minutes afterward), and Quidditch. Harry was horrified to learn that he'd only been allowed to play in the first match of the season against Slytherin, and that Umbridge had given him, Fred, and George lifelong bans.

"I'm not _still_ banned, am I?" he asked immediately. "Now that she's not teaching anymore?"

"Course not, McGonagall wouldn't stand for something like- Hey!" Ron exclaimed, suddenly excited. "Did you remember she got sacked?"

Harry smiled grimly. "No," he admitted, "just connected the dots."

Ron swelled with disappointment but tried not to show it.

"So what are Fred and George up to these days now that they've graduated?" asked Harry curiously.

Ron let out a bark of laughter. "Well, some idiot decided it would be a good idea to give them money so they could start up a joke shop," he chortled. At the blank look on Harry's face he laughed even harder.

"Oh, don't tell me," said Harry, catching on to what was so funny. "It was me, wasn't it?"

Ron gasped for breath, clutching a stitch in his side and Harry couldn't help but grin. It sounded like something he would do.

"I'm surprised they took the money from me, though," he said. He was pretty much thinking out loud at this point. "I wouldn't have thought they'd accept it."

"They almost didn't," replied Ron breathlessly as he rubbed his sore ribs. "From what I heard, you threatened to hex them if they didn't take it."

"Why would I do that?" asked Harry, confused.

Ron took another sip of water. "Well, it was your Triwizard winnings, wasn't it? You didn't want it."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Tri- Triwizard- You mean I won?" he exclaimed excitedly. "I won the tournament?"

"Oh. Oh yeah, you did," Ron said, trying to backpedal. He didn't want to talk about the Tournament, not when the ending was so terrible. For a moment he'd forgotten that Harry couldn't remember winning.

Harry was blissfully unaware of Ron's predicament. "What were the last two tasks?" he asked eagerly. "How'd Cedric and Krum do? Did you ever get Krum's autograph?"

Ron, who had rarely heard Harry mention Cedric after the Third Task, was thrown off by the question. "Er… the second task was in the lake- you ate some gillyweed and sprouted gills and had to hunt down the merpeople."

"I sprouted _gills?_"

Ron nodded.

Harry was gobsmacked. "Wow. I'm actually sort of glad I can't remember that."

"And you were trying to save me," Ron added helpfully. "Dumbledore put me, Hermione, Cho Chang, and some other girl into an enchanted sleep and you were supposed to find us and save us."

"Let me get this straight- you willingly allowed Dumbledore to put you into an enchanted sleep and leave you at the bottom of the lake?" asked Harry skeptically.

"For an hour," said Ron, nodding again.

"What would've happened if I couldn't find you?"

"I dunno," Ron shrugged. "He'd have had the merpeople bring us back up, I suppose."

"But what if you'd drowned?"

"I couldn't drown, I was in an enchanted sleep, wasn't I?"

"Oh yeah…."

There was movement over by the doorway and the boys looked up as Hermione entered the room. She still looked a right mess but at least her eyes weren't puffy and red anymore.

"Feeling better, are you?" asked Ron.

Hermione sighed and sat down next to Harry on the bed. "The tea helped," she said quietly. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," replied Ron nonchalantly, though Harry could tell that he was hiding a smirk. Harry vaguely wondered if his friends had a thing for each other.

Hermione was biting her lip and kept glancing at Harry nervously.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" he asked quietly.

She started at his question. "Nothing!" she said, perhaps a little too quickly.

"Oh come on," said Harry exasperatedly. "I may have forgotten the past three years, but you're still my best friend and I can tell when something's bothering you. What is it now?"

Hermione's lower lip began to tremble again. "I'm just worried about you," she said in a small voice.

"Hermione, I feel fine. _Really,_" insisted Harry, reaching over and giving her hand a squeeze. "My memory's bound to come back within the next few days. It'll all be fine." Harry didn't honestly feel that way, but he hated seeing Hermione look so lost and hopeless. His fib proved to be rewarding when Hermione's facial features finally relaxed and her head dropped softly onto his shoulder.

"So…," Harry started as a change of subject, "Are either of you going to explain to me why it is we're living in a tent?"

The atmosphere changed pretty quickly after that.

**A/N: **Please drop me a review and let me know what you think! I love receiving feedback :)


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